


I ain't the way you found me

by enerra



Series: you make my dreams [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Magic Revealed, Mildly Dubious Consent, fuck-or-die but like right before it, what if arthur wasn't a complete idiot?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 10:52:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12431259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enerra/pseuds/enerra
Summary: Arthur is not actually stupid. Merlin, however, might be. Gwaine definitely is (but he gets all the best lines, anyway).





	I ain't the way you found me

“They’re all so grand,” the chit sobbed into Merlin’s shoulder, her hand sliding down his back. Arthur tracked its progress with rising blood pressure. He huffed.The girl prattled on. It was all terribly gauche.

  
Arthur ground his teeth. The wench was taking liberties with his manservant. If anyone was to be afforded such rights, it should really be Arthur. As dispensation of these rights was to be decided by Merlin, Arthur had nothing left to do but grind his teeth and bear it. For now. Perhaps he might...eventually. One day. Possibly.

  
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed sweetly. “I’m making such a fool of myself. But they’re really too fine for the likes of me. What grand people!”

  
“Only when you aren’t familiar with them,” Merlin assured her, smirking at Arthur over the top of her head. Arthur tried his best to look supercilious instead of jealous. “Really quite normal people,” Merlin was saying. “Average. Mediocre. Sub-par, in some ways. Many ways, even.”

  
The girl broke into a fresh wave of sobs.

“Shh,” Merlin said, expression turning hatefully tender. It was a far sight worse than the groping. She hiccuped daintily, and Merlin rubbed at the delicate wings of her shoulder blades under the shining curtain of her golden hair.

Arthur bristled. How could Merlin stand to touch her? She was truly hideous.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, it’s all right,” Merlin said, his voice dropping low and intimate, like honey in Arthur’s ear and meant for only the girl’s.

Arthur huffed again.

“Stop huffing, Arthur,” Gwaine said, idly cleaning a joint in his vambrace with a fingernail. “You can’t go on huffing at a beautiful damsel in distress. It simply isn’t kingly.”

“I’m not huffing,” Arthur said, indignant. “But if I were, I’d have a reason. Surely even your lax standards of propriety won’t allow for this. Although if that’s what you call beautiful, perhaps you haven’t got any.”

“Propriety?”

“Standards,” Arthur asserted.

Gwaine had a harried look in his eye that Arthur did not like the measure of. He abandoned the vambrace to look between Merlin and Arthur. “Are you — what do you mean by propriety?”

“Don’t be dim,” Arthur said, indicating with a flourish the way her hand had crept closer to Merlin’s wonderfully trim backside. “I’m sure you know what it means. You avoid it so deftly in your daily life you must be working from some basic definition.”

“I’m beginning to suspect we have differing opinions on the matter,” Gwaine said thoughtfully, leaning back onto his grazing horse, who nosed disinterestedly around his foot.

“They’re clutching at each other!”

“We might be but simple peasants, but we’re actually not deaf,” Merlin put in with a huff of his own. “This ‘clutching’ is a thing commoners… no, humans do. It’s called hugging. We’ve discussed it before. You might try it yourself some time for yourself. In the unlikely event you find someone willing to hug you. Prat.”

Arthur wondered despondently how long Merlin had been ‘hugging’ pretty common girls.

“It is indecent,” Arthur said. The girl began to cry. Again.

“Ah, ah, no,” Merlin cooed to her, turning them so his narrow back was squarely to Arthur. Arthur flamed with the urge to prise her away.

“He hates me,” the girl sobbed.

“It’s not your fault. He’s a horrible toad, he was born that way. Don’t take it personally, sweetheart,” Merlin told her. She nestled into his shoulder, her beady eyes glittering at Arthur. Her eyes were suspiciously bright for someone who had been weeping.

“Sweetheart!” Arthur snapped at Gwaine.

“I hadn’t realized we’d progressed to pet names, darling,” Gwaine said, batting his lashes. “I’m flattered but I’m afraid I just don’t feel the same wa—”

“Fuck off!”

“So fickle,” Gwaine said and wiped off an imaginary tear with his thumb.

“You’re scaring her,” Merlin said, glaring. He cupped his long-fingered hands over the girl’s ears. “Can’t you ever shut up?”

“You can’t tell your king to shut up,” Arthur said. Merlin laughed.

“And I won’t,” Arthur said, ignoring the laugh. It was a losing battle with Merlin, honestly. “Does no one else care? This isn’t proper!”

“She’s just a girl, you maniac,” Gawain said sotto voce. “She’s got a harmless crush. Good Lord. I don’t believe I’ve ever met someone so sexually frustrated.”

“Nor I,” Arthur fumed. “The brazen hussy.”

“I wasn’t talking about her — ow!” Gwaine said as Arthur kicked him square in the ankle with a clatter of plate armor. “The hell is wrong with you!”

Arthur glared at Gwaine and drew one finger across his neck, for what little good it would do. Gwaine wasn’t much for kingly respect. Arthur dreamed of a day when his position afforded him the subservience he was due. Ostensibly. It kept him up that those subjects who stubbornly refused to do so were also his favorites. But that way lay madness and self-doubt and worse, those strange, clear-eyed looks Merlin gave him when Arthur complained to him about moral dilemmas.

Since Gwaine was clearly going to be no use, Arthur decided to attack at the source.

“Merlin,” he said sharply. “Release the poor girl at once. You’re strangling her, you clumsy oaf. And we must be getting on or we’ll be late.”

Merlin made one of Arthur’s favorite faces, his mouth folding up like a sturgeon’s, steam practically coming from his ears. It meant he wanted to disembowel Arthur, but had remembered just in time that Arthur was the King and Merlin was unlikely to get away with it sans consequences.

“Get on with it,” Arthur said.

Merlin gently removed his hand from the girl’s shoulder, but she clung to him, and it was slow going. Her hand slid down his back another increment, and Merlin jumped. He began to separate himself more insistently from her.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin said, but he was beginning to sound a little unsure about it now that he’d got the full octopus. “We have urgent business three days from now in a village that is an hour’s ride away. You understand. It was nice to meet you, yeah?” She teetered back, one slender hand coming up to catch Merlin’s left hand.

Merlin’s brow creased. He pulled his hand. She did not release it.

Arthur’s hackles went up.

“We’ll just be going,” Merlin said.

“No,” the girl said. She took her hand off Merlin’s arse, wound it into his neckerchief and gave Arthur a clear golden look that crept right into his teeth. Merlin scrabbled uselessly at her hands. “I don’t think you will.”

“Wha—” Merlin said and was swallowed by a flash of light.

“I told you something was wrong!” Arthur shouted triumphantly, Excalibur leaping to his hand, although he didn’t expect to get to use it. Merlin generally managed sorcery on his own. Arthur couldn’t wait to hear the improbable excuse of the day. “Unhand him, sorceress!”

“Bloody hell,” Gwaine said, unsheathing his sword in a slightly more sedate manner, also used to leaving the magic to Merlin. “I thought you were just jealous.”

The light faded, revealing the wench and Merlin clamped together like limpets, though the roles had switched. Merlin clung to her now, dazed. His hair was in an incredible disarray, and he had a smudge of soot on his cheekbone that he was somehow managing to make look beguiling. His eyes were a soft dreamy blue.

“Merlin,” Arthur said a bit belatedly, heart stuttering. “Merlin, are you alright?”

“What?” Merlin asked. He sneezed, then looked at Arthur. A brief spark of recognition faded into placid impassiveness.

“Ah,” the sorceress sighed. Her stance changed to one of loose relaxation. Merlin’s head turned to her, yearning. He tucked his nose behind her ear. The sorceress twitched away (the ungrateful wench) and slapped at him. Merlin leaned back towards her to nuzzle at her sweetly.

Bile rose in Arthur’s throat, and not because of the recipient of Merlin’s tender affections. The gesture was somehow horrible: blindly questing, a newborn puppy nosing for milk. Weak.

Merlin spent half the day tripping over his own feet and the rest of it daydreaming. But behind it all was something razor sharp and terrible, honed and intelligent, there for those who bothered to look. Not many did. Arthur had been drawn to it since the first day, though he hadn’t understood for a long time.

The thought of Merlin without it, soft and toothless, made him sick.

“What have you done to him?” Arthur said, knuckles tightening over his hilt. He did not swing. Yet. She was wrapped around Merlin, the two of them a single silhouette. He could not strike one without the other. The waiting made him queasy. Arthur was not a man of inaction.

“I’ve only made him a little more tractable,” she said. “A perfect servant. You must be happy.”

Arthur growled, a red mist descending over his vision. He wouldn’t kill her. Yet. Not until he found what she’d done. How to fix it. He’d maim her first. He’d fought sorcerers before. It was nearly impossible without magic. If only Merlin could… but he couldn’t. Arthur would do it for him.

“Undo it,” Arthur said. “Now. Or I’ll kill you.”

“I think not,” she laughed, stroking a lock of Merlin’s hair behind his ear. “Not now. The hard part’s over.”

She let go of Merlin to step away, separating herself as a target. A fatal mistake. Arthur snarled and lunged for the sorceress, Excalibur flashing in his hand. He took a lightning-fast cut at her and nearly caught Merlin in the shoulder he wrapped an arm around her waist, heedless of the danger. Arthur’s swing jerked sideways, his biceps screaming at him. Gwaine cursed behind him, and Arthur froze, sword point down in the dirt, chest heaving with what he’d nearly done. A few shreds of her sleeve fluttered to the ground in between them.

“Oh, stop messing about,” she said. “Emrys. Handle this.”

“Merlin,” Arthur said. No, no she couldn’t. He didn’t know what he’d do if Merlin came after him. He wouldn’t fight him. From what he’d seen, it was a moot point. Arthur could fight five men at once. Merlin could raze an army.

“Merlin, don’t—”

Merlin pulled up from where he was trailing after the girl and said a phrase in the strange language of magic. Arthur’s voice locked in his throat. His entire body went hard as a rock and his fingers seized into nerveless claws, like the man he’d seen struck by lightning during the tourney of his tenth name day.

Excalibur dropped from his hand. Arthur tried to pick it up, but could not move a muscle.

Gwaine, whatever else his faults, was no coward, and Arthur felt a whisper of air on the side of his neck as Gwaine swept past him in a glitter of mail. He got a mere step closer before Merlin repeated the same phrase, and Gwaine was similarly pinned into place.

“Better,” she purred. Merlin moved back to her side, rubbing against her like a cat. She petted him absently.

“Good,” she said. “Now, I need the King. But kill the other one,” she said, pointing at Gwaine. “I don’t want him interfering.”

Arthur threw everything he had at the spell. Merlin’s eyes flared up from a dull mustard to a flickering honey, but Arthur found no give. Merlin slowly detached from her and turned to face Gwaine. He raised a palm.

He would never forgive himself if he ever came back to them. Arthur couldn’t let it happen.

“Don’t,” Arthur said. It felt like glass in his throat.

Merlin paused.

“Do it,” the sorceress said, sharp. “Now!”

Merlin didn’t move.

“That’s not possible,” she said, fear in her voice. “You can’t do that! You have to do what I say!”

Merlin cocked his head.

“Let me go,” Arthur grated out.

Merlin turned ponderously towards him. His eyes were clear yellow now, like the cave lions in the south of Albion, low cunning and lethality.

“No,” the sorceress shrieked, and pointed at Arthur, magic pouring from her throat. Arthur closed his eyes, defenseless, only to see a thousand yellow fireworks behind his eyelids. There was no pain.

When he opened his eyes, Merlin was on his knees in front of Arthur, panting, both hands over his heart. The sorceress was round-eyed and gaping.

“You’ve ruined it,” she said.

“Don’t touch him,” Merlin said, low and dangerous.

“Well,” the girl said. “There’s no use for it now.”

She stomped towards Merlin, who tried for his feet but couldn’t keep them, going back to his knees in the dirt. She leaned down, grabbed Merlin by the back of the neck and kissed him. A tiny part of the spell holding Arthur splintered under his fury, loosing his enraged shout. Neither of them heard it.

The girl had gone stiff the moment they touched, her arms windmilling at nothing. Merlin didn’t react for a long moment. Then a net of golden sparks settled into a vague crown over his head, and his eyes snapped open, true gold. He shoved the girl with both arms, and she fell back to writhe screaming in the dirt.

“How can you stand it,” she gasped and shuddered. “Is that what it always feels like for you?”

The girl turned to run and tripped over her hem. Merlin threw out one palm and her fall was arrested, her body making a sharp angle with the ground.

“Oh,” Merlin said, a noise of pure terror, and braced himself on his knees. “Oh, no.”

Arthur made another sound of indeterminable emotion, and Merlin straightened. “Oh, fuck, I’m sorry,” he said, and Arthur’s bonds collapsed like melting snow. “Arthur, I’m so sorry.”

“Hello? What about me?” Gwaine said, but the levity wasn’t there. He was as scared as Merlin, putting himself between them, his hand on his sword. His side was already chosen. Arthur was strangely gratified.

“Merlin,” Arthur said.

“Let’s pretend this never happened,” Merlin said, white-faced. “You don’t have to tell anyone I’m sorcerer.”

“No,” Arthur said. “No, we’re not going to do that.”

“Arthur, please,” Merlin said, voice shaking. “What if I leave? I’ll leave. I can leave.”

“No!”

“Please,” Merlin said again, wild-eyed. “I only used it to help. You have to believe me. I wouldn’t use it against you. I only used it for — for you. And Camelot. You have to understand, please. I’ll go to Ealdor, you won’t ever have to see me again.”

“Just— shut up,” Arthur said, fumbling for control.

Merlin cringed and half-turned. Gwaine drew his sword.

“Don’t move!” Arthur roared.

Everyone froze.

The whole situation had a precarious feeling to it: as if they were at a crossroads. Fate could still draw them down many possible paths, dark and light and many shades in between. Arthur’s life had been fraught with that feeling.

Merlin was poised on the balls of his feet, a deer before the leap. Arthur wondered if Merlin would flee on foot. Would Arthur be forced to run him down like a fox on the hunt, or would he simply disappear in a puff of smoke? Arthur prayed he would run if it came to that. He hadn’t the faintest idea how to track a man who left no mark.

He’d grown used to the sunlit path lately, particularly when Merlin was by his side. Arthur kept his eyes on Merlin and tried to conceal his shaking hands.

“Merlin,” Arthur said. “Shut up. I won’t let you leave.”

“Arthur,” Gwaine said. “Let’s not make any hasty judgments. You’re angry now. Let it sink in before you — before you make any decisions.”

“Gwaine,” Arthur said, bringing to bear the entire sum of cavalier disdain he possessed, which, as it turned out, was quite a lot. “I know you and Merlin like to whisper behind my back about how dim-witted I am, but I am not actually stupid.”

“Ha, ha,” Gwaine said very mechanically, as though someone had prodded him in the back at a very boring player’s performance and told him to laugh.

“That’s not true,” Merlin said quaveringly.

Arthur’s knees turned to water. He locked them.

“No?” Arthur asked, perfectly willing to play the straight man, willing to do anything to get him to stay until Arthur could lay hands on him and keep him there. He edged closer.

“I normally say it to your face,” Merlin said.

“Yes, well, I won’t argue that point,” Arthur said, sidling forward a bare fraction. “Despite my best efforts, you seem to be too thick to learn the proper manner in which one should speak to a king.”

Merlin relaxed down onto his heels. Just a few steps closer and Arthur be able to take him in a tackle. Arthur risked a whole step.

“Stop!” Merlin said, his voice going thin with fear. He staggered back from Arthur as though there weren’t still a good ten feet between them. The raw terror in his voice was unbearable. Merlin was so _afraid_. Of _Arthur_.

“Stay there!”

“Whatever you’re afraid of, it won’t happen, you idiot,” Arthur said snidely, trying to conceal the ache. “You’re being absurd.”

“Yes, well,” Merlin said, making an aborted skittering movement towards Gwaine. “I’m having a little trouble believing it. Considering.”

They all paused to take in the view, the sorceress still frozen halfway in a fall, curls flying motionlessly behind her, like a painting. Gwaine’s horse had moved to graze in her shadow, unimpressed with such unnatural displays.

“At least try not to be so obtuse, even if you think so little of me,” Arthur said. “I’ve known you were a sorcerer for years.”

“What?” Merlin said.

“Honestly, Merlin,” Arthur said. He longed to go to him. “The amount of time you’ve spent bellowing spells in my ear during battle, it’s a wonder I’ve retained any of my original ability to hear.”

“I don’t… what?”

“Shall we start from the beginning, or do you just want that last bit again?”

“You’ve known,” Merlin said. His face was a rigid mask of shock, and he was cradling his own elbows, drawing in upon himself. “You knew I was — and you didn’t — Arthur,” he said, and rather confusingly, began to cry. Arthur felt horrible for feeling it was an improvement over the fear.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Merlin said. His face was wet, and there was venom in his voice behind the fear. “How could you not tell me you knew!”

Arthur had waited for years for this.

Well, not this: the fantasy version of this. The day when Merlin would decide that he could trust Arthur. That Arthur had finally earned it from him.  
When Arthur had imagined it, it had gone like this: the two of them curled together. Merlin, safe and warm, opening his hands and holding them out to Arthur, his last and worst secret on his tongue and trust in his eyes.

“Do you have even a trace of self-awareness?” Arthur asked.

“What?”

“I raised the ban on magic years ago.”

“Yes, but—”

“I made a position called Court Sorcerer. I held tryouts.”

“I’d kept it secret for so long, I wasn’t sure what you would do. What if you hated me?” Merlin said, his eyebrows angling up in the center. He was finally looking at Arthur, seeing him. Arthur swallowed past the lump in his throat.

It was half an answer. Arthur might let it go. But if he did, fragments of this moment would be working their way to the surface between them for the rest of their life, like a lance only partially removed from the wound.

“Arthur,” Merlin said. The blue of his eyes and the sharp bones of his face were painful to look at, crystalline and lovely, so Arthur didn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Arthur said. His voice cracked on the word ‘me.’

“I was afraid,” Merlin said. “I didn’t tell you because… I was afraid.”

“What were you afraid of?”

“I thought,” Merlin said. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

Arthur waited.

“I thought you would kill me,” Merlin said.

“I — never. How could you think…” Arthur said. He couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t give life to the repugnant thought. How had he failed Merlin so, that he would ever believe that? But the answer was there for him. Arthur granted amnesty to magic users. But Merlin had been raised on fear. Camelot had only nurtured it. Merlin had seen his people punished for the mere fact of existence. Had seen Arthur do it himself, as a boy. What was it like, Arthur wondered for the thousandth time, to expect every day to reasonably be your last?

But how could Merlin not know that he was different, for Arthur?

“Not ever, Merlin,” Arthur said, at last. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “You don’t have to be — I would never. Not for anything.”

“Arthur,” Merlin said, stricken.

“Do you understand?” Arthur said. He needed him to. He would have to be very explicit with him from now on.

“Oh, Arthur,” Merlin said and reached out for Arthur with one elegant hand. His eyes were very dark. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, of course, you wouldn’t.”

“This is all very touching,” Gwaine said.

Merlin clenched his hand into a fist and withdrew it.

The nape of Arthur’s neck prickled and his gauntlets creaked under the sudden constricting pressure of his grip. Arthur mentally replaced them with Gwaine’s head and was lightly soothed.

“Your contributions are as piercingly insightful as always, Gwaine,” Arthur said.

“Thank you, Arthur,” Gwaine said. “Nice to be appreciated. I was feeling a bit left out, what with the baring of secrets and all.”

Which reminded him. Arthur rounded on Merlin, who was still watching him, a strange set to his mouth.

“Did you tell Gwaine before me?” Arthur asked Merlin, disbelieving.

“Does anyone think,” Gwaine cut in neatly, “that we should, I don’t know, worry about the spell she cast on Merlin?” He fixed both of them with a withering stare.

“Oh,” Merlin said, rubbing his face tiredly. “I forgot. It’s probably nothing.” He blinked gold at the sorceress. She completed her fall and ceased to scream. She came up on her elbows, breathing hard, and peered around until she found Merlin. She sat up and began to straighten her hair, watching him intently.

“What are you looking at?” Arthur asked her, uneasy with the arrogant bearing of her shoulders. Didn’t the wench know she was beaten? He closed ranks with Merlin, who swayed towards him even before he got close, his head tilting towards Arthur. He made a small sound under his breath that made Arthur’s tongue feel too big for his mouth.

“Are you alright?” Arthur said.

“Did he just…?” Gwaine said.

“Stay away,” Merlin said, jolting as if waking up and leaping away. Was he still frightened?

“I told you,” Arthur said, angry at Merlin and his father and himself. “I won’t hurt you.”

“Maybe we do need to find out what that spell was,” Merlin said, but his voice was high and panicky. He was afraid. He kept stealing little glances at Arthur and then looking away.

“Thank you!” Gwaine said. He knelt behind the girl and began trussing her up with what looked like a scarf. She seemed unbothered. Merlin watched, chewing on his lip. Arthur licked his own sympathetically. Even such a small movement made Merlin twitch and stare, keyed up as he was with anxiety.

“Oh, this is… not good,” Merlin said.

“Rather astute of you,” Arthur said, trying again to go to him. “You and Gwaine must have gone to the same school of observation. Will you stop moving!”

“What if I…do something to you?”

“You won’t,” Arthur said confidently.

“I might,” Merlin argued.

“Like what?”

Bafflingly, Merlin went brick red. It was better than his terrible pallor from before. There was a healthy flush to him now, on his cheeks and neck and disappearing infuriatingly under his shirt collar. He shifted his weight back and forth between his feet, then looked over his shoulder at the stand of trees behind them. Looking for cover. Gwaine was noticing the same thing, giving Arthur a significant look and circling around to cut off Merlin’s escape route.

“Merlin,” Arthur said.

“I need to… to,” Merlin said, going up to the balls of his feet again. Oh, hell. He was going to make a break for it.

“Don’t be an ass,” Arthur said and lunged for him.

Merlin ran, after all. It was just like Merlin to forget he was a bloody sorcerer, the simpleton. Arthur sprinted after him, sparing a thought to be regretful he’d chosen to wear armor. This was going to hurt.

He caught Merlin in two steps, and they went over in a clatter, missing Gwaine by a hair. No matter what mystical powers his manservant commanded, Arthur had on him at least thirty pounds of muscle and a lifetime of training. In the end, Merlin was an idiot, no matter how beloved or possessed of arcane talents.

“Ow! I think you broke a rib, you buffoon, what are you doing to me?” Merlin yowled in his ear. Arthur snatched at one trailing wrist and tucked it to Merlin’s chest, snaking both legs around his thighs in a stranglehold. “Let me go!”

“Stop running away and I might consider it,” Arthur said, grabbing for and missing the second arm.

They were working up quite a sweat. Merlin was a scrappy fellow when you got down to it. Arthur was unsurprised. Various and prolonged nighttime musings had led him to believe Merlin was perhaps more muscular than his frustratingly enigmatic peasant’s garb suggested. Arthur rolled them over, pinning Merlin down, trying to trap that dangerous hand. God help Arthur if Merlin remembered he could do magic. Merlin flailed up. Arthur slammed him back down, throwing his weight into his hips.

Merlin whimpered. It was a sound distinctly different from the grunt of pain he’d let out when unceremoniously tackled. It made Arthur instantly, compulsorily hard. He jerked upright in shock. Merlin’s hips twitched up needily after him, and Arthur promptly ran out of saliva.

“Oh, he definitely did that time,” Gwaine said. “This is just like that time in Cenred. That woman robbed me blind.”

“You are,” Merlin said, “supremely unhelpful. Both of you.” Arthur reared back to defend himself and Merlin moaned.

“Definitely,” Gwaine said. “Took my boots and everything.”

“What?” Arthur croaked. This was shockingly similar to the opening scene from a series of dreams that had haunted him for several weeks in his early twenties.

The sorceress began to laugh.

Arthur tasted blood. He put a hand to his mouth and drew it back scarlet: he’d bitten his tongue. Merlin stared at his fingertip and shivered, then shoved Arthur back a few inches. He raised his head to stare at the girl. Arthur was caught by the sooty parabola of his lashes, black against his cheekbone. Under his lashes, Merlin’s eyes flickered rapidly, cobalt to gold and back again, sunlight dappled on deep water.

“Fuck’s sake,” Merlin yelled, startling Arthur out of his stupid daydreaming. “You hag, what have you done to me?”

Arthur exchanged a glance with Gwaine, who did not appear to be mired in the same swamp of confusion as Arthur but only shrugged at him.

"You shouldn’t have messed up my spell like that.”

“Oh, right, sorry, I should have just let you murder the king, how rude of me!”

“Murder me?” Arthur asked, ignoring Merlin’s hysterics and his own erection with the ease of long practice.

“I wasn’t going to murder him. It’s just as well. I think we might even be happier together,” she mused, directing her prattling at Merlin, who was still panting under Arthur.  
Arthur scrambled up and shook himself all over like a wet dog, armor clanking.

“You’re no king, but all that power! It’s like falling into the river at Midwinter, kissing you is. All my skin about crawled off my body.”

“Thanks, very flattering,” Merlin said.

“I had no idea Emrys was so young,” she said. "It’s a good job you’re so comely.”

“Comely?” Merlin said, scandalized.

“It means pretty,” the sorceress said, rolling her eyes.

“I know what comely means,” Merlin said. “But I’m not… is that why you made me… oh,” he groaned and curled into himself. The late afternoon light caught on his rapidly fluttering pulse, delicate in his neck. Arthur bit at his tongue where he’d nicked it before, grounding himself by the pain.

“I’m not pretty,” Merlin gasped out at last. He looked askance at Arthur, who shook his head reassuringly and somewhat self-servingly. Arthur would like to cut down on the number of people yelling about it.

“Why me?” Merlin said. “There are a lot of people much more…” he trailed off, looking back at Arthur.

“This is intolerable,” Gwaine said. “I am being tested.”

“It was a happy accident,” she said. “I actually meant to hit the King with that one, but you were misbehaving."

“This is all very interesting, but surely there are more urgent topics at hand,” Arthur said reproachfully. The conversation seemed to be going wildly astray: there were more important things to discuss than Merlin and his insistent aesthetic appeal. Such as the fact the tart had just detonated a spell under his nose.

“For example, what did you mean, ‘that one?’ That spell? What have you done to him?”

“Are so,” she said, ignoring Arthur and eying Merlin like she was at the yearly horse auction and had just spotted one of the king’s own amongst the sway-backed drays. “Well, nearly. I’ll just fix the ears a bit, shall I? Then you’ll be perfect.”

Merlin hesitated. “Yes, well. They are a bit…” he said, glumly.

“Don’t touch his ears,” Arthur snapped. “They’re fine as they are, you blind strumpet.”

“Cor,” Gwaine said with a snort. “You’ve got it bad.”

“I do not,” Arthur said, his vocabulary somewhat reduced by fury.

“How are you feeling?” the girl asked, pitching her voice low.

“Quite stressed, now that you ask,” Arthur said.

“Frustrated, I would think the word is,” Gwaine said.

“Not you,” she said. “Emrys.”

Merlin didn’t respond. His breathing had gone shallow and fast, and when Arthur put a hand on his arm his skin was hot. Merlin’s breath hitched and he shoved Arthur’s hand off.

“You’re compelled,” the girl said silkily. “There’s a void, isn’t there? It opens with a kiss. To close it, you must consummate.” She was turning a smug pink herself. Arthur bared his teeth at her. “I was trying to be queen, but. Power is power, right?”

“Now, when you say consummate,” Gwaine said.

“The natural conclusion. Look at him.”

They turned as a unit to examine Merlin, whose eyes were wide and dark. His hips were twitching futilely, and when Arthur looked down, guiltily, unable to look away, his breeches were tented, a wet spot growing on the front.

“So he’s got to fuck someone,” Gwaine said pragmatically. Arthur smacked him on the back of his head. “Is it you?”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Merlin rasped. “I’ll just…” he fumbled at his belt.

“Good god,” Arthur said, then winced when Gwaine smacked him on the back of his head.

“It won’t work,” she said. “You won’t get any relief that way.”

“I’ll wait it out. I have self-control,” Merlin said. Arthur snorted.

“It will get much worse,” she said. “And you’re so strong… you could have anyone. Do you really think you can stop yourself?”

Merlin looked at Arthur, mouth opening. His eyes were black now, and his hair was beginning to curl on his forehead.

“I need your help,” Merlin said and shivered like a spasm was passing over. “You’ll enjoy this one.”

“Anything,” Arthur said, feeling as if he was looking down on his body from a great height.

“You have to knock me out,” Merlin said grimly.

Gwaine guffawed.

“What?” Arthur asked stupidly; there was no blood left for his brain.

“I might hurt someone,” Merlin said. “You’ll have to knock me out before I lose control.”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” the girl said. “How’s your spell work? I used a variation of this on you.” She said something to him, sibilant and sonorous. Merlin swore and sat down to pull his boots off.

“You were going to use this on him?” Merlin spat. “You could have killed him! I’ll kill you myself when I’m done.”

“Don’t be so sure,” she said, and tied back her hair.

“Hang on,” Arthur said, waving his hands uselessly. Was he — “What did she say?”

“I was worried something like this would happen,” she said, tossing her hair. “So I made sure I would be covered.”

“Get on with it!” Arthur said, forcing himself to turn away from where Merlin was struggling with his laces.

Merlin himself looked up, his face twisted in anger. “The target of this spell must…”

“Go on, use consummate, such a fancy word,” Gwaine said. “So little opportunity to use it.”

“If I don’t fuck someone within the hour, well…”

“Well, what?” Arthur said, heart in his throat.

“He’ll die,” she said, gleeful.

“You evil bitch,” Merlin said, and ripped his neckerchief off.

**Author's Note:**

> So here's your prequel! Now with 96% less porn!!
> 
> On a more serious note: I've always been unsatisfied with the in canon magic reveal. Also, unbetaed, drop me a line if you find an error!


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